Lindenhurst Village to Begin Rebuilding Gazebo This Month

The long-awaited rebuild of the Lindenhurst Village Square gazebo will finally commence later this month.

The project will also include the building of a new substation that’ll house a small meeting room and public restrooms, which will be open during public events like .

That’s the word from village officials this week who told Lindenhurst Patch that they received the last piece of the puzzle to begin the project: the final building permits from Suffolk County.

“We have all of the necessary permits now to start building,” said Village Administrator Shawn Cullinane. “We physically received them September 30. And since we have all of the contractors lined up and the funding ready to go, we’ll begin the building process on October 14.”

The for the new – which was downed by a March 2010 nor’easter – and the accompanying new substation has been a long time coming.

Though the normal course of bureaucracy played a major role in the long delay, Cullinane explained, the sewer connection the substation’s public restrooms requires was one item that caused the county to ask the village for a variety of documentation and revisions.

“The county kept asking questions and for different documentation and changes, and we kept giving them to them, and finally the county said, ‘Okay, here are your permits,’” Cullinane said.

While the village accommodated the county’s many requests, it also made sure it was ready to go when it did get the green light.

“We lined up contractors, and we made sure we had the funding in place,” the village administrator said.

The , he said, will be paid for by the insurance money the village received following the nor’easter while the new substation will be paid for by one New York State Assistance Grant and a capital improvement grant from the county that needs to be spent before the end of this year.

“So there’s no direct cost to the village or the taxpayers,” Cullinane noted, adding that the hope is for everything to be finished by Christmas – though that all depends on the weather.

He also shared the plans for the new and with Patch. They showed the to be in approximately the same spot in the northern part of Village Square. It’ll be handicapped accessible this time, and its original octagonal shape will be a bit more elongated.

“This is so the size could accommodate, say, a small one- or two-person band or public speeches, or the polka band we had this year,” he said, adding that the new gazebo will measure roughly 12 feet by 18 feet.

The village’s showmobile will still be brought in for larger events and bands in its usual spot at the adjacent parking lot on East Hoffman Avenue.

The approximately 18-foot-by-25-foot substation will be built in the northeast corner of Village Square, and will replace the current plantings. It’ll also have phone and communication connections so it could serve as a stop for village and First Precinct officers, should they need it.

The village doesn’t anticipate any added cost for maintenance of the new building since that’ll be handled by current village personnel, Cullinane noted.

In the days leading up to the October 14 start date, Cullinane said the village is just putting the final touches on the plans. Those include making the surfaces a little less friendly to skateboards and the like.

“We’re working out some details, and looking at different surface materials – possibly something like cobblestone,” he said.